2013: GOING GLOBAL, EXPANDING HORIZONS 2013 was an extremely busy year with significant changes including consolidation of teaching and research with the School moving from 12 centres, units, groups and institutes into 4 centres, one institute and two partnership groups. It was during these changes that the Nossal Institute for Global Health became part
164 NEW STUDENTS
of the School with the renaming of the new organisation as the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health (MSPGH). 2013 was a significant time in population health globally with the approved resolution for Universal Health Coverage (UHC) at the end of the preceding year urging governments to move towards providing all people with access to affordable, quality healthcare services. It was also in this year that two new student programs were started:
• the international student exchanges and • the intercalated Medical Degree and Master of Public Health (MD/MPH). 67 STUDENTS FROM OVERSEAS
The intercalated MD/MPH degree was introduced to provide medical students an opportunity to take the MPH in a compressed time frame and represents the shortest educational pathway to membership of the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine, a chapter of the Royal Australian College of Physicians. The first year saw seven students enrolled. The first cohort were an impressive group who dived into the unknown, took a year out of their medical studies and are now emerging as leaders in their chosen fields, paediatrics, general practice, cardiology and public health physician training. Those that have done the MD/MPH are at a real advantage whether they go into clinical medicine or public health. Not only do they have greatly refined
STUDENTS REPRESENTING 23 COUNTRIES
The first class of the MD MPH 14
MASTER OF PUBLIC HEALTH
skills in research methodologies, but they are enfranchised by new skills in planning, project management and leadership, and by their broad and deep understanding of the local and global health systems they operate in.
